A drug can be defined as any substance with a psycho-active effect that is potentially able to produce addiction. A drug addict is periodically or chronically intoxicated, shows a compulsion to take the preferred substance (or substances), has great difficulty in voluntarily ceasing or modifying substance use, and exhibits determination to obtain psychoactive substances by almost any means.
For this reason, some authors define addiction as a disease that has limited neurological location to an area of the human brain named the limbic region, precisely in the brain insula.
Addictive diseases have causal agents so any organism having an addiction has conditioned its response to these repetitive and cumulative agents.
An addiction is considered a disease not only because it has causal agents and it generates consequences for organic impairment, but also because it also goes through the stages of evolution, periodical status, treatment and cure.
On the other hand, addiction is considered a neurological disease because it alters the organic and anatomical central nervous system and the sympathetic nervous system (neurons). Besides, in addition to the neurological injuries, one must add lesions in other organic locations.
The vast majority of people dealing with the use of drugs or that at least discuss drug addiction typically do not include two drugs whose acquisition and use are legalized throughout the world, namely, tobacco and alcohol.
Suffice it to look at what is happening now with the use and abuse of alcohol and that is directly related to traffic accidents, to deaths and mutilations that are a real epidemic in our society. Not including the impact on relations between the addict and his/her family (co-alcoholics) and his/her social environment and workplace.
Moreover, most of those people affected by tobacco are in the productive age, subject to compliance with the working day; and considering the restrictions on smoking in closed public places, the habit of smoking becomes not only a health problem but also a socio-economic one. It is not possible to ignore the importance of passive smokers, especially at home and its impact on their family environment (co-nicotinics).
The use of drugs is directly involved in human behaviors, separating them far from the social coexistence equilibrium. When a smoker is told that he/she is a drug addict, the individual usually gets angry, does not understand it and does not accept it (is in a denial phase).
It is necessary to change the popular point of view that considers that tobacco and alcohol are not drugs, because this misconception makes it very difficult to manage this subject for therapeutic purposes and even more difficult to do it from the social point of view. The reality is that these substances are drugs and can become highly addictive to the user.
The system to approach the disease denominated “smoking” must be addressed in compliance with the definition of the World Health Organization that states: “Smoking is a chronic addictive epidemic disease, with a tendency to relapse.”
In the case of smoking, it is recognized that the substances that compose tobacco smoke which is introduced into the respiratory tract and mucosa, enter the bloodstream and circulate around all tissues and fluids of the body, reaching the brain in seven seconds.
The Central Nervous System is one of the regions of the body that shows a greater avidity for nicotine and therefore is one of the most affected by the substances present in cigarette smoke; It has been proved by different studies that the limbic zone of the brain is one of the most affected by nicotine and it is on the brain insula where disorders and alterations in the functionality of neurons have been found.
Neurobiology reports that the limbic area of the human being controls important functions such as the will, feelings and emotions. This means that any person carrying any addiction, in this case a tobacco addict, has these functions altered.
When applying treatments that do not remove these toxic substances introduced into the body in a chronic form in an “intensive” manner, it enables the body to accumulate these substances in different tissues without certain possibilities of spontaneous elimination. These treatments are thus less then entirely effective.
Human tissues exhibit different degrees of affinity to these toxins and therefore have a greater or lesser injury or disturbance due to them. Thus, it is known, for example, the extent to which tar impregnates the periphery of the lungs and placenta.
Smoking is associated not only to the currently recognized damage provoked to the health of smokers (respiratory problems and their impact on ventilation and breathing), but also its relationship with other diseases that appears in the short, medium and long term and that are directly related to toxins present in cigarette smoke has been demonstrated, the most common being nicotinic arteriopathy of carotids, heart, kidneys and lungs.
These major arteries are damaged mainly by nicotine which is recognized for its dynamic action on the circulatory system because its presence changes the tone and arteriolar walls of peripheral circulation, the terminal arterioles of all organs and essentially the vasa vasorum and vasa nervorum that nourish the structures of the great vessels.
This is the main cause of the blockage of large vessels (thrombosis and stroke), mouth sores, cataracts and genetic disorders. Its relation with cancer has been proved.
The introduction of cigarette smoke into the body through the respiratory tract causes immediate irritation and inflammation, as well as an increase of secretions or dryness of mucous membranes depending on the patient, due to the contact of these organic structures with cigarette smoke.
This combustion product acts directly on the respiratory tract causing the stoppage of bronchial cilia; moreover, some components of cigarette smoke contain substances that act on the bronchial wall, i.e., in their anatomical structure.
Nicotine and other components that accompany it have an action on the bronchial tone, acting directly over the smooth fiber which is a part of the bronchial structure and bronchioles.
The permanent harmful action on the light and bronchial walls leads to irreversible bronchiectasis.
When bronchial spasms remain for a while, they generate emphysema, a disease that is characterized because the stale air is trapped in the alveoli, distending and irritating the alveolar wall.
In addition to this situation, there is an altered blood distribution also due to nicotine which acts on the wall of the capillaries that are at the level of the alveoli (nicotinic arteriopathy), which triggers lung emphysema. It is also not possible to hide the interference in the hematosis process.
Moreover, due to inflammation of the bronchial wall and of the bronchioles, smokers develop chronic bronchitis. The spasm and irritation leads to inflammation; the body tries to repair and repair becomes a scar. This process of tissue organization around the inflammation leads to reparative fibrosis, which is the first stage of Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD).
In the second stage of COPD, there are successive closures of alveoli and bronchioles jeopardizing the fibrotic alveoli, thus affecting the functionality of lung parenchyma, consequently resulting in a decreased lung capacity (smoker's respiratory distress).
In the third stage smokers are exposed to decompensation. They usually visit the doctor when they are in this third stage, especially when an intercurrent complication triggers decompensation.
While in the state of the art is possible to find several smoking cessation treatments, none has the distinctive features of the method discussed herein in accordance with the present invention. Thus, U.S. Pat. No. 6,845,777 of Pera describes a composition to quit smoking that includes the use of tobacco or derivatives, antioxidants, SAMe and caffeine.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,132,754 of Hudson details a method to help the patient to eliminate the dependence on tobacco that includes helping the patient in his/her desire to quit smoking combining the use of medicines and behavior therapy.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,431,874 of Szynalski claims a method for smoking cessation which comprises three steps: (i) educate the smoker in relation to physiological damage and techniques for quitting smoking, (ii) give the smoker a hypnosis program that includes classroom training and the use of prerecorded material and (iii) general dietary substances to improve their nutritional status and substances that help to control withdrawal symptoms and weight gain that occurs as a consequence of abandoning the addiction. Each of the above mentioned U.S. patents is hereby expressly incorporated by reference in its entirety.
While these methods offer some solutions and have some success, there is a need for an improved method that provides improved success and overcomes the deficiencies of the above methods and others.